


no such thing as ghosts

by phantomlistener



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunted House, Trick or Treat 2020, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26892109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomlistener/pseuds/phantomlistener
Summary: “Oh, I don’t believe this. Are you telling me—” her voice rose audibly in disbelief— “that was ahaunted house?!”The psychic paper leads Donna and the Doctor to an abandoned house - but it isn't entirely empty....
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble
Comments: 16
Kudos: 24
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	no such thing as ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [K_Popsicle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Popsicle/gifts).



Donna stepped out of the TARDIS and straight into a suit of armour.

It fell with a crash, the helmet rolling down the dark corridor where they’d landed with all the gusto of an escaping convict, and Donna stopped dead, hands frozen in mid-air in front of her. “Ow!”

Behind her, the Doctor’s head popped out from between the TARDIS doors. “Everything alright?”

“Just the locals giving us a warm welcome.” She shivered, stepped carefully over the prone (now headless) protector of the hallway, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms and tugged at her cardigan, pulling it tighter around her shoulders. “Bit cold, isn’t it. Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Yeah,” said the Doctor, drawing the word out in a way that mostly meant _no_. “Psychic paper was very clear.” He hopped out of the TARDIS and spun around in a full circle with his hands in his pockets. “Looks like some sort of posh house.”

“Not _that_ posh.” She pointed at a leaded window just to the left of the TARDIS, cracked in the lower corner and edged with cobwebs. The light it was letting in was faint and cold, blue as if the moon outside was full. “This place hasn’t seen a feather duster in years.”

“Abandoned, then,” he concurred.

“Then who sent the message?”

The Doctor managed to look concerned for all of ten seconds before his expression melted into conspiratorial delight. “Dunno,” he said, and wiggled his fingers in her direction. “Spooky, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

They set off down the corridor. There were stairs at the end, old and partly rotted away at the edges, and they picked their way carefully up into a long, wide gallery, lined with columns that gleamed in the half-light. Donna looked up, and the cracked ceiling trailed ivy.

Following her, the Doctor’s voice came sharp and insistent: “Behind you!”

She whirled around, heart beating fit to burst- 

-there was nothing there.

“What-”

“Oh, your _face_!”

He was way too pleased with himself, and Donna snorted in disgust, marched onwards with all the indignation of a mother-of-three faced with one too many childish shenanigans. The gallery became another hallway, wood-panelled, with a staircase to the right; she turned. “Doctor-”

He was peering into some sort of side passage, branching off under a stone carved archway, oblivious, and when she turned back-

There was something there. A shadow, a shape, almost human. Not human.

“ _Doctor_.” She hissed it with all the menace she could muster, not daring to take her eyes off of whatever it was. “ _Now, please_.”

“I’m not falling for that,” he said, with absent detachment. “This stonework is very-”

“No, _really_. Turn _around_!”

The real edge of hysteria in her voice wasn’t enough to convince him, but it was enough to make him turn, reluctantly, braced for Donna’s crowing laughter when there was absolutely nothing there.

“- _oh_ ,” he said, taking an involuntary step backward.

Whatever it was, it was hovering at the far end of the corridor, as if someone had drawn a person and sort of smudged the outline into abstraction. It was emitting an unearthly glow of pale blue – and it was moving closer.

“Right,” he said. “Okay. Maybe we’ll just go—”

To his left, through the arched passageway that he’d been eyeing, another _thing_ glided silent and menacing towards them.

“Up the stairs!”

“ _There’s another one_!” Donna was frightened now, shrinking back against the wall. “At the top of the stairs! We’re cut off!”

The three apparitions were drawing closer, no longer drifting towards them but gathering speed and advancing with deliberate intent. “Back to the TARDIS,” he said urgently. “It’s our only way out. _Run_!”

Donna didn’t need telling twice. They barrelled back the way they’d come, along the corridor and through the gallery, feet hammering across the cracked flagstones. The _things_ were almost at their heels, suffusing their route with a soft blue light that matched the moonlight, filtering in through dirty glass.

“Come _on_ , Donna!” The Doctor was ahead by a couple of feet, pelting headlong down the rickety stairs that led to the lower level and disappearing around the corner to where they’d left the TARDIS.

“Oy!” Running for her life wasn’t going to stop her from defending herself. “I’m running as fast as I can!”

“Well run _faster_!” came his voice, just out of view.

The blue light behind her was getting stronger, colder, and she didn’t dare look around, knew that whatever it was had almost caught her. She went round the corner at full speed, feeling for all the world like one of those racing cars her gramps liked to watch on the telly of a weekend – and the TARDIS was blissfully, wonderfully, exactly where she’d been left, warm orange light spilling from the open doors and the Doctor waiting just in front.

“ _Donna_!”

They tumbled through the TARDIS doors one after the other and Donna slammed them closed behind them, bent double and gasping for breath. “What,” she wheezed, “the HELL. Was THAT?!”

He looked discomfited, ran a hand through unruly hair. “Um...some sort of... _manifestation_? I think? Didn’t actually get a great look, what with all the chasing.”

“That’s Timelord for ‘ghost’, is it?”

“What? No!”

Donna fixed him with a steely glare. “Well it wasn’t exactly a bloke in a sheet. And I don’t know about you, but what with the creaking floorboards and cobwebs and _actual suit of armour in the hallway_....”

“Sometimes houses are...like that,” he said lamely.

“Oh, I don’t believe this. Are you telling me—” her voice rose audibly in disbelief— “that was a _haunted house_?!”

The Doctor frowned. “Well, strictly speaking, what you might call a ghost is more likely to be some sort of psychic phenomenon than an actual dead person.”

“That does _not_ fill me with confidence, spaceman! I’m gonna need a bit more reassurance than that!”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts?” he tried again.

“...yeah,” Donna said, the sarcasm in her voice matched by the expression of false gratitude on her face. “You’ve really helped. Thanks, Doctor.” She moved further into the TARDIS and leaned against the railings that surrounded the central console, tilted her head back in a grateful stretch, and considered the ceiling. “So...what now? We’re not leaving, right?”

“Of course not.” He sounded almost offended.

“’Cause I can’t help but feel like there’s something we’re missing.”

“There is. There’s something _niggling_ at the back of my mind.” He pulled a face, ran one hand over his chin. “And it’s _really_ ticklish.”

For a moment, the only sound in the TARDIS was the low electrical hum of the console as they stared at each other.

“Y’know,” Donna said slowly, “they really should’ve been able to catch us. I mean, we’re just two knobs legging it top speed to the TARDIS, but they’re like...ghosts, right? How come they didn’t just...nab us?”

“ _Nab us_?”

“Yeah! And you know what, my mum took us to Wales one summer when I was nine. Rained solid for a week and Gramps caught a chill on the first day, but there was this farm, and I was _obsessed_ with the sheep.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to this,” muttered the Doctor.

“It’s _background_ ,” came the retort. “Anyway, it reminded me, ‘cause there were these dogs, chasing after the sheep, you know?”

“Sheepdogs,” the Doctor said flatly. “We’ve just escaped from goodness-knows-what out there and she’s thinking about-” He broke off mid-sentence, and the expression on his face went from annoyed schoolteacher to delighted child in just about two seconds flat.

“ _Sheepdogs_ ,” they said together, with identical grins.

“Don’t you see, Doctor? They _wanted_ us in here!”

“Oh, you _are_ good.” His tone was admiring, even as he span around to the console, flicking switches and hitting buttons and tugging at levers in a whirlwind dance that made Donna breathless all over again just to watch. “Come on, you beauties, where are you hiding? You’ve got to be somewhere, you’ve got to be hidden just in between the— _Yes_!” He threw his hands in the air in triumph.

“What’ve you found?”

“Oh, we’re on the same wavelength now, me and those ghosts.” He was fiddling with something behind the console that looked suspiciously like Donna’s Year 10 electronics project, tangled wires and questionable smoke and all. “Literally, actually.”

“You’re gonna make me go out there again, aren’t you.”

“Yeah.” He admitted it with a total lack of shame. “Something out there needs our help, Donna.”

“You always play the sympathy card,” she tutted, but she was smiling, eyeing with amusement the mess of metal and wires and...golf balls?...that apparently passed for a sophisticated piece of engineering. It was a ghost-telephone, was what it was. “Alright then, Doctor. Let’s talk to some ghosts.”

He hefted the invention into his arms. “Ready?”

“Me? Always.”

They both grinned, and stepped outside.


End file.
